Trident Replacement

Hi Folks

Having heard yesterdays news about this goverments propsed trident upgrade, and being a cynic I thought that perhaps this news about cutting the UKs nuclear stock pile no be entirely for the good of the planet although that is indeed a welcome move IMHO, running four Trident boats is expensive (700 million a year)and so by reducing the numbers by one the treasury will make a signinficant saving (roughly 175 million), maybe old Brown has more than world peace and WMDs in mind with this?:rolleyes: As given this goverments record you can bet you A#@e the navy wont gain another astute to replace the fourth Trident boat, I await to be proved wrong.

Ive also given some thought to the upgrade is it going to be just the warheads or will it be the entire missile, the reason I enquire is this, if we change the missiles , wouldnt the RN need to buy them out right and wouldnt they be incompatiable with the USN weapons , that are currently in a shared pool arrangement? For whats its worth i can see the RN getting two maybe three half a@#ed over budget, delayed Astute class hybrids armed with weapons that again are scandalously over budget all in the name of safe guarding Brittish jobs.

IMHO we need to seriously consider the threat faced today and the circumstances in which we would employ nuclear weapons , do we really need a submarine based detterent that is unflexible and single role? Are we going to be required to fire a massive counter strike on a global super power? I would say not for the forseeable future, if at all. The delivery vehicle needs to be capable of carrying out conventional as well as nuclear strikes.

I am about to irratate the navy here I think,(although there is no reason it couldnt be a joint RN/RAF force ala Joint Harrier Force) but IMHO what Britain needs is 10 -20 strastegic bombers capble of both missions , that way they would provide a cost effective partner to the tactical air power that RAF/RN posses and uses in the last eight conflicts that the RAF and RN have, whilst being available to be used for a nuclear strike mission, if in the future a cold war style scenario did develope again the rapid expansion of the nuclear forces could be implemented with minimum delay.

I await your reply

Butch